GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) – On Tuesday, the Mississippi Army National Guard (AVCRAD), in conjunction with Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) and the National Aviation Research Institute (NIAR) unveiled a new technology, a first in the country.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony welcomed a new piece of high-tech equipment that will be used to find voids in helicopter blades.
The new technology called “VISION” uses shearography, a non-destructive inspection technique using laser light to detect defects.
“This is a verification and inspection system optimized for nondestructive testing,” explained Matt Tomblin, director of the NIAR Automation Research Center. “It’s a long acronym, but basically it means we can take any rotor blade structure, we can put it in the airframe behind us here, and it has cameras and various pieces of equipment to being able to inspect and almost see through the rotor blade structures. So it’s a bit like an x-ray without all the radiation.
Shearography, also known as speckle pattern shear interferometry, uses coherent laser light in a manner similar to holographic interferometry to create a visual representation of a test object, for non-destructive testing ( NDT), deformation measurement and vibration analysis.
It is widely used for aerospace applications as well as wind turbine blades, the automotive industry and for materials research.
Over the years, AVCRAD, the unit that works on military aircraft, has used what is called the tapping method, in which a professional taps the blade using a small specialized hammer to detect voids.
The accuracy of the test depends on the knowledge and experience of the tester.
While tapping the blade, the technician listens for discontinuities in the audible sounds produced when the hammer hits the blade.
This discontinuity normally represents a void or delamination. However, CW2 Justin Henry says that even if the tapping method is approved, “VISION” will take all the guesswork out of it.
“So in terms of timing, it’s about the same as far as the inspection goes, but the quality of the inspection will improve significantly compared to the tap method. Everything here is about safety, right? There will be a crew attached to this aircraft equipped with these four main rotor blades,” Henry said. “Any type of damage that we don’t find, or slips through the cracks if you will. You know you have their life in your hands at that moment
AVCRAD will combine the tap test with new technology to collect data to validate current methods and improve shared knowledge.
Henry says that in the future, they hope that “VISION” will expand from just an inspection method to being able to also perform repairs.
Tomblin says they hope to have “VISION” fully validated for use by July 2025.
Mississippi AVCRAD supports 24 Army aviation support installations in two southeastern states, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Photojournalist: Hunter Ezelle
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